Backpack as a close-combat weapon on public transport: The thing on my back is none of my business – Comment

I actually consider the backpack a brilliant invention. For centuries, if not millennia, it prevented its wearers from dislocating their arms on heavy luggage , from ruining their spines through improper carrying techniques, or from damaging their necks with bag straps that constricted them. So, if you want to be very, very generous, it actually extends life. Even old Ötzi—the Stone Age man discovered in a glacier years ago—traveled in the Alps with a kind of backpack made of wooden struts and a fur sack.

“This accessory needs width, not tightness”

These days, the backpack is also an it-piece when you look at big cities. Backpack, beanie, earpods, sneakers – this is the current uniform of the metropolitan person , and by no means just for twenty-somethings. I like wearing one too, but I'm more than outraged by how others treat their "city bag." Anyone who has ever stepped onto a crowded tram in the morning (or alternatively a subway or bus compartment), full of backpackers rushing off to their projects or jobs, will find my homage to this universal packing miracle offensive. Because there, the thing degenerates into a close-combat weapon. In keeping with the motto: I can't see what I'm carrying in my back, so it's none of my business, even if it's my own.

Perhaps that's why it's called a backpack ? With a tug, or even a twist, the fully packed thing hits those standing by in various parts of the body. Whether intentional or not isn't always clear. I can't even count how many times a day I flinch like a boxer in a ring or do a half-snake dance just to avoid being caught on the radar of lightning-fast passengers with backpacks. As bestselling author and men's style guide Bernhard Roetzel ("The Gentleman") so aptly puts it: "A backpack on public transport is inconsiderate. This accessory needs space, not tightness." Quite true.

But try telling that to someone who's grumpy in the morning, or already battered by the current world situation and—for some reason—irritable. Recently, after another headbutt, I asked a two-meter-tall man—already a bit brusque himself—to please be careful, as I needed my head intact today. At which point he looked down at me over his shoulder and retorted that he had no eyes in the back of his head. "That's true," I countered, "but you have a responsibility not to crush anyone with your luggage."